By Ebi Kesiena
Normalcy is slowly returning to Chad following deadly protests on Thursday.
Chad’s government announced an overnight curfew on Thursday and said deadly clashes between police and demonstrators protesting the military’s grip on power claimed around 50 lives.
Hundreds of demonstrators turned out in the capital N’Djamena and elsewhere on Thursday to mark the date when the military had initially promised to hand over power.
Chadian Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo updated the official death toll to about 50 on Thursday night, saying most fatalities occurred in N’Djamena and the cities of Moundou and Koumra, while more than 300 people were injured.
In a press conference. Kebzabo added that a curfew between 6:00 pm and 6:00 am (1700 GMT and 0500 GMT) would remain in place until the total restoration of order in the hotspots of unrest.
Kebzabo also announced the suspension of “all public activity” of major opposition groups, including the Transformers party and civil society coalition Wakit Tamma.
The government had previously put the death toll at 30, including 10 members of the security forces.
“A banned demonstration became an insurrection,” government spokesman Aziz Mahamat Saleh told AFP.
He accused demonstrators in N’Djamena of attacking “public buildings”, including the offices of the governor, the headquarters of the prime minister’s party and that of the speaker of parliament.
An AFP reporter saw five bodies on the floor of the city’s Union Chagoua Hospital, two of which were covered with the Chadian national flag and three with bloodied white sheets.
The head doctor, Joseph Ampil, later confirmed that five individuals had “died from gunshots”. Palls of black smoke could be seen in some parts of the city and the sound of teargas grenades could be heard.
Barricades were set up in several districts and tyres were set alight in the main avenues to block traffic. The headquarters of Kebzabo’s UNDR party was also attacked by demonstrators “and partially burned down”, UNDR Vice President Celestin Topona told AFP.
France, Chad’s former colonial power, condemned the violence, noting it featured “the use of lethal weapons against demonstrators”.
Also, Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union Commission, posted a tweet to “firmly condemn the repression” of the protests and call for peaceful ways to overcome the country’s “crisis”.
The United Nations said it “deplored the lethal use of force” and called for an investigation into reported human rights violations.
